Mini Sidebar

TAG: Facebook

Burglars go online to pinpoint potential victims

Criminals and law enforcement officials are early adopters of new technologies and social media in particular in their battle to outwit each other.

With recent revelations about PRISM and the activities of GCHQ you would think that law enforcement would have most to gain from the latest digital developments.

Surely, some time soon we’ll be living in a version of Minority Report where cops intervene before the crime is committed?

However, that Utopia (Dystopia?) seems to be a few years away.

In the meantime, there are plenty of ways in which burglars in particular can develop their lean systems to target and gather intelligence on potential victims and minimise the risks of getting caught.

Twitter, Facebook and Foursquare are particularly straightforward ways of finding out if someone is away on holiday or business.

Google StreetView makes advance reconnaissance a piece of cake.

GPS data automatically embedded in social media platforms and photos provides further opportunities

The infographic below summarises some of the main techniques in current use.

Do you keep your social media presence “close to the vest” (e.g. only allowing Public Information Officers the ability to post content) or does your strategy include the ability for all agency officials to reach the community? The latter type of presence involves letting go of control to some extent and this, of course, requires a huge leap of faith from leadership, especially in top-down oriented public safety organizations. However, this type of strategy is currently being done quite successfully.

DECENTRALIZED COMMUNICATIONS: IS THIS THE EVOLUTION OF YOUR SOCIAL PRESENCE?
In the book “Social Media in the Public Sector Field Guide” Ines Mergel and Bill Greeves suggest that a decentralized approach to social media content production is evidence of an evolved use of social media in organizations. They state that agencies that have been using social media for a while often “make social media the responsibility of everyone” and offer the benefits of this decision:

A recent decision at the Department of Defense was to abandon the role of the social media director and instead transfer that position’s responsibilities onto many shoulders in the organization. It is very difficult for a single department or division to speak with the knowledge and authority of all the business units of an organization. “Official” responses often require time and research. They frequently result in formal answers that do not fit the casual tone inherent in social media. By formally distributing the tasks and response functions to those who have the knowledge required to have meaningful online conversations on social media channels, you can decrease maintenance costs, increase trust in those exchanges and reduce the number of missteps or rounds of interaction it takes before citizens get the “right” response from your agency. (pages 110-112)

BUT HOW WOULD THIS WORK FOR PUBLIC SAFETY ORGANIZATIONS?
The Toronto Police Department provides an example of complete decentralization of social media content. As can be seen in the image below their agency’s website homepage has all the “big 3” social media buttons: Twitter, Facebook and YouTube. These buttons take the user to their official account, most likely administered by a Public Information Officer.

Choose, however, the “Connect with us” tab right below it, and their world opens up. I counted 119 different social media accounts for this organization–119! What are all these people talking about? Ideally, the content they are posting should be directly related to their position or function in the organization, and with each of the samples I chose at random, that proved to be the case. Take for instance Sgt Jack West (@SgtJackWest)—who has the title of “Traffic Enforcement.” No shocker, he talks a lot about traffic and how people can stay safe–e.g “Don’t text and drive” etc.

Motoryclist down on lakeshore Blvd, west of Kipling Ave. Emergency Services on location

Patricia Fleischmann or @caringcop on Twitter, has the title of “Vulnerable Persons Coordinator.” What does she post about? How elderly and other people who might be vulnerable to crime and natural disasters can be better prepared. She also Tweets quite a lot about people that are helping each other, organizations folks can turn to for assistance, and information from community meetings she attends. She has a healthy following of 762 people.

I could go on for while with examples, but feel free to explore of these great social feeds yourself by clicking here. So, how do they keep everyone in their “lane?” How do they keep all of these people from embarrassing the organization and posting inappropriate content? Yikes–this is scary territory!

I have been told by some of these Toronto Tweeters, that they do the following:

Before they get their social account, they are required to attend a 3-day intensive social media training class that provides them with not only information about how and why to use social networks, but also how NOT to use them. This would include Department and City posting policies.

Each of the accounts are clearly marked with the fact that the person works for the Toronto Police Department, however, they do often choose to use their own picture instead of the PD’s logo–giving the account a personal touch, which I think is critical for community outreach and engagement (it says to the public–we are people to).

Each account states that they do not monitor the account 24/7, and that if anyone needs emergency assistance they should dial 911. (See below–each person’s account information looks almost identical.)
Each Twitter profile links back to the official website.
This obviously is not a willy nilly hey, all-you-guys-go-Tweet-something strategy. Their strategy is obvious, their goals are clear; and it seems to me they are meeting the objectives of reaching out and connecting with the public on platforms that the public uses everyday.

Kim Stephens is an independent emergency management consultant and the lead blogger of iDisaster 2.0 where she writes about the benefits as well as the challenges the emergency management community and other public sector entities might face when employing new information communications technologies before, during and after a crisis. She has over a decade of experience in the field of emergency management. Her experience has spanned federal, local and non-governmental organizations: from the US Environmental Protection Agency, to the Tennessee Montgomery County Office of Emergency Management, and the American Red Cross. She has a Master’s degree in Public Administration from Texas A&M University.

Hacks mimic identity of your friend to access your information

Friends connecting on Facebook, more than ever, is something that needs to be respected and trusted.

Recently a number of people including me have received friend requests on Facebook from people they know. Why is this unusual? Because these requests are from people who are ‘already’ connected and listed as friends.

The requests are from scammers attempting to gain access to your Facebook account and utilise your information that you share only with friends. They are using the scam of Ghost Accounts. Meaning they are Fake Imposter Accounts, that have copied everything from a friends Facebook Account, that is available on public view.

Once they are accepted into your account, they are in a position to glean as much information as needed to further their scam. They send friend requests to your friends and can make an imposter account from your details.

What to do
If you receive a request, firstly check with your friend to see if they have created another account.

If they have not – Report the Imposter account and warn all the people in your friend list to also report the account.

How to fix it
Change your Profile picture and Cover photo, as the fake account is likely to have copied these and is using them. Friends can then distinguish between the imposter and the correct Facebook account.

Check what is on Public View – this is done by choosing the ‘View As’ tab on your Profile Page.

View As Tab – Will display a public view of your Timeline.

Lock down your Friend list. To do this ~ Click the friends tab on your Profile and from the dropdown box choose the option of ‘Edit Privacy’ and then ‘Only Me’.

Click on the Friends Tab on your profile – Edit Privacy – Only Me

Friend Hacks
The more difficult issue comes from a friend who appears to have just joined Facebook and sends you a request. Be on alert, verify the account by sending the friend a text message or email. Do Not Send an inbox message to this new account request, as this does not verify the account! If you are not comfortable contacting the person to verify the account, should they really be on your friend list?!

(If you feel you have to friend them, once verified, place them in the ‘Restricted’ or ‘Acquaintance’ listing so they view only a limited profile.)

Some would say the above is too cumbersome and time consuming, but how much is your information worth? Isn’t going the extra yards to protect your account, personal posts and photos worth it?! …. I think so!

Real life scenario
A new person started at the office and you later receive a friend request from them. A check of their Timeline shows their account was only opened last monday. For the moment you ignore the account request. The next day you check the account and they have managed to friend 16 of your mutual friends.

Nobody has bothered to check via text, email or other contact, to verify this person or the account. It is later discovered it is an imposter account.

This ‘friend hack’ now has access to a number of colleagues information from that work environment, along with access to their family photos, friends, other information and personal posts.

This is a real scenario, discovered this week! These work colleagues had no idea and are concerned as their information may have been downloaded, copied, printed out or shared by the fake account!

More than ever being a friend on social media, needs to hold an element of respect, trust and appreciation that you have been chosen to be an online friend.

The friends you have on Facebook need to have your back… if you can’t verify them or trust them.. ‘unfriend’ and get rid of them! This is for online safety and management of your digital reputation, not only for you, but for your family and friends.

Janita Docherty founder and Director of CyberActive Services is a trained Crime Prevention Executive with more than 18 years experience in the field of law and criminal investigation. Janita specialises in Facebook and Internet Safety instruction and is recognised for her work with law enforcement Units dedicated in the fields of E-Crime, Sex Crime, State Intelligence and Tactical Intelligence areas. Janita has an intricate knowledge on the workings of Facebook from a criminal intelligence perspective and is a leader in her field regarding Facebook training to Police and specialist law enforcement departments both in Australia and the United States. Janita has completed training with the Internet Crime Against Children (ICAC) Taskforce, and holds a number of Certifications, including a Diploma in Frontline Management, a full qualification in Crime Prevention Through Environmental Design (CPTED), is a Youth Mental Health First Aider and has been presented with a National Service Medal. She is held in high regard within social media and law enforcement domains, for her enthusiasm to educate professionals, regarding online safety and digital reputation management.

If you’re interested in British Police use of social media, you should definitely follow Mike Downes (@mikedownesmedia) who produces an incredibly useful monthly statistical update on UK police social media accounts.

In his latest post, Mike has focused on the sharp increase in the number of people “Liking” police Facebook posts – where 16 forces had month-on-month growth of over 20%.

I thought I’d do a little analysis and look at exactly what sort of police posts people like.

What do the public like on police Facebook pages

Mike found that three police forces had the highest rate of increase in Facebook “likes”compared to the previous month: Hampshire, Greater Manchester and Strathclyde. I looked at the Facebook pages for these three forces and identified the five most popular posts from each in the month under review. Where more than one post covered the same subject, I aggregated the number of likes and treated them as one post.

Hampshire

In Hampshire (@hantspolice), the post that provoked the most public response was a photo of a police car parked in a disabled bay at MacDonalds which the Constabulary had to explain occurred when an officer went to investigate an offence, not to get a Big Mac and fries.

Tragically, the second most popular post related to an officer who had died on duty in a Road Traffic Accident.

Two of the three other most popular posts related to missing people who had been found and one was a plea for information relating to an assault on a pensioner.

Greater Manchester

In Greater Manchester (@gmpolice), by far the most popular post had photos of a new police dog’s first day at work.

Interestingly, the second most popular post was also about dogs – in this case, a story about local dog thefts.

As in Hampshire, two of the top five posts related to missing persons with the other a plea for information on the anniversary of an unsolved murder case.

Strathclyde Police

Once we look at the Strathclyde data (now @policescotland), some themes start emerging:

Yet again,we have one post relating to dogs and one to a missing person. The second most popular post related to the amalgamation of all seven Scottish police forces into Police Scotland and the other two were concerned with police successes: the conviction and sentence of murderers and the arrest of sex offenders.

Summary

So, what have we learnt from this not-so-scientific mini analysis?

The public seem to respond to some key categories of Facebook post:

Information pleas and good news about (particularly vulnerable) missing persons – 5 out of these 15 posts.

There’s good news and bad in the new Facebook policies, and much left to be seen

Facebook has made some significant changes to privacy settings. They’re rolling them out to all users over the next few days and weeks, and some of it is good news! But let’s start with the bad news.

Facebook is eliminating our ability to take ourselves out of public search. This is the checkbox that, when selected, prevented your Facebook profile from showing up in searches when the person doing the searching was using a search engine outside of Facebook.

When thinking of your personal profiles on Facebook–the ones you don’t use for police work–it might be a good idea to make a slight name change and rethink whether you want to post yourself in a profile photo.

Janita Docherty, a law enforcement professional in Australia is a leading authoring on officer safety on Facebook. She offers alternative advice as well.

“Click on your Profile picture–it will open to a larger view of the picture–under your name click on the audience icon, which is likely to be a World globe. … This will open a drop down box–change this to ‘Friends.'”

This doesn’t take it away from public view but sets it so your photo isn’t viewable as a larger image to anyone but your friends. It also prevents non-friends from seeing comments associated with it. Docherty adds, “It is imperative that police members who have a Facebook account do what they can to further protect themselves online. This action may also help safeguard the accounts of family and friends.”

There’s good news though and the best part for officer safety is that officers now have more control over photos other people post of them online. Facebook is giving us a Request and Removal tool. Within the “Photos of You” tab, Facebook is providing a direct to the poster tool to request photos be removed complete with a spot to explain why. If that doesn’t work, the same tool will allow us to remove tags of ourselves from multiple photos all at once.

Additionally, there’s a new shortcut to privacy settings. It’ll appear in the upper right corner next to “home” as shown in the image included here.

These changes will be rolling out between now and the end of the year. But, there’s more to these privacy changes. For details, see news of the changes directly from Facebook here.

About ConnectedCOPS

The vision behind ConnectedCOPS is to enhance law officers’ ability to succeed with social media tools by providing insight, encouragement, education and the overall support required. It is also to promote the insightful thoughts of the law enforcement social media visionaries by providing them a voice on this blog.